Monday, June 30, 2014

Mohammed Abdel Wahab




Mohammed Abdel Wahab was the most prolific Arabic composer of his time, responsible for more than a thousand songs. He personally sang hundreds. For his orchestration of the Egyptian national anthem, Anwar Sadat awarded him the rank of general.



Abdel Wahab was born in 1907 in Cairo. He made his first recording at the age of 13. In 1924 he was taken under the wing of Ahmed Shawky, then known as the Prince of Poets. Shawky saw to the furthering of Abdel Wahab's musical and literary education, so that in time if Shawky was the Prince of Poets, Abdel Wahab was known as the Singer to Princes and Kings.



 In the late 1920s Abdel Wahab wrote traditional melodies, well suited to Shawky's texts. But as European rule replaced Ottoman rule, Western influences affected local music.



In particular, stage musicals in Arabic incorporated Western elements. In 1926, it fell to Abdel Wahab to complete a musical left unfinished by the late Said Darwish, a great composer of the previous generation. The musical centered on Antony and Cleopatra, and Abdel Wahab himself played Antony to great acclaim. After visiting Paris and familiarizing himself with French musical presentations, Abdel Wahab invented the Arabic film musical. To a popular culture in which romantic love was commonly associated with suffering, Abdel Wahab introduced a romantic hero of light-hearted wit and urbane sophistication. His films portrayed a Westernized social elite and featured music that broke from tradition. Fellow composers noted that the music was simplistic compared with Abdel Wahab's previous work, and Abdel Wahab used lip-synching rather than the improvisation on which Arabic music had traditionally relied; but audiences loved it. The film "The White Flower" was a phenomenon, breaking attendance records.



Abdel Wahab enjoyed introducing new female singers to the public through his movies; many became stars, including the great Leila Mourad, who would go on to produce her own films. Musically, his films continued controversial, as he began to feature large orchestras with admixtures of Western instruments. Into his art, he hybridized Western song forms such as the tango, samba, and rhumba.



In the 1950s Abdel Wahab left film and concentrated on his last recordings as a singer, assuming a new and more serious musical style. In the 1960s he stopped singing, but he continued composing for other singers. It was in 1964 that after years of rivalry at the top of their profession Om Kalthoum released a record of his "Ente Omry" written for her to a text by the poet Ahmad Ramy. Perhaps partly because of its timing-- coinciding with the flowering of Nasserism-- the recording became Egypt's all-time best-seller. It was the song the young generation thought of when they thought of Om Kalthoum, though it was certainly Abdel Wahab, not Om Kalthoum, who spiced up the orchestration with an electric guitar.



For many years Abdel Wahab appeared very little in public, but his popularity never faded. In 1988, at the age of 81, he made a surprise return to the studio, singing a new composition, and despite lyrics that seemed unacceptably iconoclastic to some radicals, the disk sold two million copies.



Some biographical information about @abdel Wahab from a TV program by Simone Bitton for Arcadia Films, written up and contributed by Mark Levinson.






Sunday, June 29, 2014

Michel Henritzi 13 questions




Michel Henritzi was born in Metz, France (1959), where he lives and works. He was involved in different industrial and rock bands in the late 70s, before joining the collective Nox. In 1984 he created a cassette label, AKT Production. He also collaborated with American writer Kathy Acker in 1986 on a lecture recording.



He has written extensively for different independent fanzines (New Wave, Hello Happy Taxpayer), and continues to write for Revue & Corrigée, the dictionary of independant japanese music, and the web-zine Opprobrium. Since 1988 he has been working with the band Dustbreeders, complimenting his written work with musical action. He has mounted numerous productions of different anti-records, an exhibition of vacuum-cleaner bag like a recording, and the covers of La Monte Young & Christian Marclay; he has exhibited and presented performances in art centers and music festivals in France, Germany and Japan. He currently runs the label A Bruit Secret.



Guitars, lapsteel & amp. from noise to abstract blues. Old time was a member of noise unit dust breeders since start plays with mile of string & o death jug. regular partners to Junko (Hijokaïdan), Rinji Fukuoka (Overhang Party), Kumiko Karino & plays with Tetuzi Akiyama, Masayoshi Urabe, Jojo Hiroshige, Chie Mukai, Ito Atsuhiro, Shinichi Sohata, A Qui avec Gabriel, Mattin ...




 Which was the first musical sound do you remember?

I think the first sound I identify like a sound object was church's bell ringings. That gave me deep melancolia, I didn't like this sound, it was link with death. But I took consciousness about sound around me. My mother tells me when I was young kid I liked beat saucepan with spoon or keys, I liked noise, I guess like most of childs. Later in school first music I heard was « The 4 seasons » by Vivaldi. I loved it, especially « the Winter », that moves me deeply. I was aware of music like sound object. First record I bought was Pink Floyd « Saucerful of secret ». I listen all things i could find without question of styles, I was just happy to listen many kind of music.



What do you dream, musically speaking, about?

I speak about my blues feeling. I'm a melancolic guy. Music is a door opening on past life, lost desires and lost loves. Sometimes I express my angry too, different feelings in regard of our lifes and society. In fact that depends my projects, sometimes it is more politic like a critisism of music system with my projects with Mattin or Brandon Labelle. With Rinji Fukuoka or Junko I just try to move audience in a psychedelic trip, touch them directly by the body. I realized 3 records around my Japan world too, these records are deeply influenced by my Japan trips and musicians encounters, music like Enka or some amazing singers like Kan Mikami, Kazuki Tomokawa, Morita Doji, Maki Agasawa



I'm still very impressed by Japanese musicians, their syncretism and how they change some idioms in their own stuffs. It is kind of example to follow for me. I dont believe about the concept of new. All musicians just deal with other musics they know, and all musicians repeat always their first stuffs. Listen Keiji Haino, Derek Bailey, Loren Connors, it is always similar, just they try go more deep inside their music world. For pop music or improvisation is same. Idea of new things is fake. Experimental music is a style of music too, an historical part from 50 to 70s. It is a non sense to talk about experiemntal music today. We just follow our way, what can we do else ?



 Why did you decide to pick up the guitar?

In fact I didn't decided myself. My mother wanted I learn an instrument. I wanted play violin but it was too expensive. So I start classic guitar during 3 years. I hated that. I was very bad student. I started studied my lessons just before go to the guitar class. Most of time I was very lazy. Later in 77 when I heard the first punk records I wanted play this music myself. I bought a telecaster. But nobody wanted play with me, all my musician friends thought I was too bad guitar player so they didnt want include me in their punk bands. I was especially bad to keep regular rythms. I was very dispappointed because I thought than punk didnt know how play guitar just express themselves by sound. By chance 1 or 2 years later I heard a Throbbing Gristle record. I was astonished by their sound collages and guitar way. For me it was real punk music. So I started to play alone in my room noisy guitar with tapes mixing in this side. I used industrial sounds on cassette to mix with my distortion guitar. I was happy playing alone. Little after I discovered the No Wave. For me it was the more interesting way to follow. I had no technics but I could express myself with sounds.



Which work of your own are you most surprised by, and why?

To play with Junko (voice of Hijokaidan). For me it was my idol, kind of untouchable diva, i never think play one day with her. She gives me very strong power and deep feeling. So i still surprised how we sound with Junko. With Dustbreeders too, I think we had a really unique sound.



Where are your roots? What are your influences?

So many influences. I listen music over 40 years, every styles and genres. I heard so many things from blues to extreme noise. I care especially of guitar players, guitarists like Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, Keiji Haino, Donald Miller, Loren Connors, Rowland S.Howard, John Fahey, Derek Bailey, Masayuki Takayanagi, Marc Ribot, Noël Akchote, Kevin Drumm, Blind Willie Johnson, Alan Licht… During long years I stopped play guitar, I was involved in noise music, I love feedback and amp hum. One day I saw « Dead Man » and i was impress by Neil Young soundtrack. Little later I heard a french guitar player Fabrice Eglin, he played a very sensual feedback guitar. Heard them gave me the desire to play guitar again, so I bought a cheap electroacoustic Yamaha and asked to Fabrice to play together. He accepted and we start a duo under name Howlin'Ghost Proletarians. We play kind of abstract blues with feedbacks. In same time I met a Japanese photographer Kumiko Karino and I play solo guitar on her pictures slideshow. Her pictures influenced my music too and open my ears to Japanese enka music. I tried mix Blues and enka music on her pictures. But my roots i think it is noise and industrial music. That open my mind about what is music. Now I play everyday in my room, I dont practice, just in a feeling way kind of enka blues.



How would you define "danger" in an artistic work?

No danger. What is danger for a musician? I cant believe that. Art is cut with the real world. It is just its mirror. We can broke the mirror and what? Of course some music could change our lifes or thinking views but nothing more. It is important for me but silence too. Today you can play everythings nobody take care, no fighting, no real critic. We are in consensual world and peoples know everythings in surface. Music is like paper wall. New generation likes extreme stuffs, it is just fun for them and others dont care. It is really marginal, no effects on society. Like rap or noise it is just fashion stuffs. No danger.



Define the sound you're still looking for, or the sound you'd like to hear.

A blues don't sound like its roots but like mine. In noise too I try put a blues feeling. My music is blues music. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe I arrive at an age or you dont need to impress others, you do your stuffs in your side. Sometimes I think I'm like an old story teller.



How do you experience time? How do you experiment with time in your music?

I learnt from Keiji Haino and Taku Sugimoto about time in music. Im still a speed guy but i still keep in mind the japanese concept of Ma. But most of time I forget it (laugh). I play in different duo projects and I try follow my partners in their time and space. Some music need long duration for exist full like my duo with Rinji Fukuoka, other is like a punch, you say everything in 10 or 20 minutes, you dont need more time. Time is my feeling of time. I dont know if audience has the same time experience than me. Everybody has his own time, sometimes we meet other times and something appear or not.



Which living or dead artist would you like to collaborate with? 

I'm really lucky I played with most of the musicians I wish to play with: Junko, Rinji Fukuoka, Masayoshi Urabe, Tetuzi Akiyama, Mattin, Bruce Russell, my friends Thierry Delles and Yves Botz in Dustbreeders. Today with Christophe Langlade. If i could i loved play with Keiko Fuji (enka singer suicides last year). Maybe with David Eugene Edwards, I'm fan of his folklore. Be a sideman of Kazuki Tomokawa or Kan Mikami. Few years ago maybe I gave you very different answer, I was more interested by so called experimental music, today I don't care about modernity, new. It is just a fashion or an empty concept.



What is some valuable advice that someone has given to you in the past?

In Marc Ribot interview he wrote « use your mistakes, your blunders, amplify them, it is part of you of your sound ». I still keep this advice in mind. It was great lesson.


Michel Henritzi & Rinji Fukuoka duo, live in Gari Gari, Ikenoue (Tokyo), on May 5th, 2014.

What gear do you use?

I have an old Framus television guitar, i love it. I have several lapsteels too : National, Oahu, Rickenbaker, Harmony, Hofner, Guyatone … I play more and more lapsteel especially in my noise and psychedelic projects. I use many guitar effects boss and mxr. And Fender amp. In Japan my friend Rinji lends me a Gretsch solidbody guitar, i like gretsch sound. I like buy an Harmony guitar or a Jazzmaster, but no money yet.




 How would you define the present time in musical terms?

After i plug my guitar, before my sound dies.



What are you currently working on?

I have several projects I'm working on. A duo with Japanese guitar player Shinichi Isohata, covers of Keiko Fuji. New recordings with Rinji Fukuoka inspired by Tony Conrad and Henry Flynt. I finished recordings with Junko, kind of rock'n'roll tracks mix twang guitar and her screamings. Our new guitar duo band with Christophe Langlade named O'death Jug, we have 3 records ready but no label (laugh). I plan a duo with Tetuzi Akiyama and songs recordings with A Qui Avec Gabriel on accordeon. I finished some soundtracks for 2 movies too. And we play again with Dustbreeders after long months we stopped.
Still play my solo enka blues stuff too.



Selected Discography

dustbreeders dustbreeders - mommy close the door - starlight furniture (usa) dustbreeders / kenpei-tai - bells - utsu tapes (japan) dustbreeders + howlin'ghost proletarians - dvd - oe (france) howlin'ghost proletarians - dead roads - absurd (greece) howlin'ghost proletarians - the singer - absurd (greece) howlin'ghost proletarians - the last farewell - N.O.T (fra) v.a - meeting at off site - improvised music of japan (japan) s.isohata / x.charles / m.henritzi - duo(s) - o'musubi (japan) michel henritzi - keith rowe serves imperialism - wmo/r (euskadi michel henritzi / rinji fukuoka / kumiko karino + overhang part tetuzi akiyama / michel henritzi - broken blues - absurd (greece junko - mattin - michel henritzi junko - aya onishi - rinji fukuoka - michel h junko - urabe - henritzi junko - michel h - E+S=B junko - michel h. michel henritzi / junko rinji fukuoka / michel h. V/A michel henritzi michel henritzi michel h. michel henritzi michel henritzi / junko michel henritzi/rinji fukuoka michel henritzi michel henritzi / junko junko



Giuseppe Continenza 13 questions



Giuseppe Continenza has been playing guitar since the age of seven. He studied classical guitar at the Classical Music Academy in Pescara, Italy and later moved to California to study at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, graduating in 1992.




Giuseppe has performed and recorded with many renowned artists including Bireli Lagrene, Joe Diorio, Jimmy Bruno, Martin Taylor, Bobby Watson, Gene Bertoncini, Gary Willis, David Friesen and Jack Wilkins. His last recording, Seven Steps to Heaven (with Vic Juris, Dominique Di Piazza and Pietro Iodice) hit #4 on the iTunes charts.



Giuseppe teaches jazz  guitar at the “L. D'Annunzio” Conservatory in Pescara and he has also taught at other schools including University of Oslo, etc



In 1994 he founded the European Musicians Institute (EMI), one of the most advanced jazz schools in Europe. Giuseppe also contributes and writes columns in many magazine publications including Just Jazz Guitar (USA), Guitar Player, Guitar Club, and Jazzit.



Giuseppe is touring since last spring with Biréli Lagrène (featuring the additions of the incomparable Dominique Di Piazza on bass, John McLaughlin's bassist) or Gary Willis (Wayne Shorter, Allan Holdsworth) and Michael Baker on drums (Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter’s drummer) and he recorded a new album entitled Tribute to Jobim, featuring Gene Bertoncini, Dominique Di Piazza and Pietro Iodice.

 

He endorse Benedetto Guitars, Buscarini Classical Guitars, DV Mark Amps, Eventide Effects, Seymour Duncan Pick Ups, La Bella Strings & Reference Cable.





Which was the first record you bought with your own money?  

I think it was Joe Pass "Virtuoso" and I found a shop in my city Pescara, Italy where you can get all this wonderful rare album and when I discover it all my little incoming was leaded there :)




Which was the last record you bought with your own money?

It was a Blly Childs album ... I love his composing skill as well he is a very inspiring musicians.










What do you expect from music?

Music is all for me. It give me peace, love, inspiration, ambition and so on! I love the way every day I live music with projects and thinking how many think I want to involve in my playing.





Which work of your own are you most proud of, and why?

Actually there are many. I was recording and playing with so many great musicians, I love all of them, everybody has a personal voice. I was impressed by all of them Joe Diorio, Scott Henderson, Gene Bertoncini, Vic Juris, Jimmy Bruno, Jack Wilkins, Martin Taylor, John Stowell, Dominique Di Piazza, Gary Willis, Michael Baker and many others. I am very proud of my collaboration with Biréli Lagrène. We met in 2000 and we did the first tour together and we are still playin and touring on these days . In my opinion he is one of the most talented musicians in the planet. He was playing with Jaco Pastorius since he was 19 and he a prodigy he was touring as a solo jazz guitar performer when he was only 13 years old! Plus he can play every instrument like violin etc and of course he is a great person we are like Brothers and we love to make music together.
We did playing in quartet with Gary Willis (Wayne Shorter, Tribal Tech) and Michael Baker (Joe Zawinul, Jimmy Smith) and it was fantastic wonderful musicians at top level.









What's the importance of practice in music, in your opinion?

I think it's very important to have a goal each week in order to get a target in your playing. I love to study, develope, discover and I'm still studying a lot when I have time. And i advice new students first to get a great teacher who can really show you the way to know your instrument, i teach since a long time and i think it's very important and second get great records and start learning a repertoire of standards so you can comunicate with other musicians. Transcribe some phrases of the player you like and get a good sound from your pick and finger as well from your amps and effects if you use them.
I teach jazz guitar in Conservatory of Pescara, Italy and at European Musicians Institute a vocational music academy.





What quality do you admire most in a musician?

I admire when a musician can speak with his music, I thinks audience can feel it. Many of today musicians are so busy in complicate the music that the result is most of the time so boring because i think that the "Melody" is the Queen of the composition, so even if the harmony and the rhythm are complex but the melody is there clear and strong you made it! Wayne Shorter in my opinion is a great example he can play simple melody but make it great. The composition "Ana Maria" is a great example of his genius,





What’s the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar? Which guitar  and gear do you use?

I think it depends on who is playing it ;) Just kidding, I thinks the great guitar has her own voice and you reconize just playing her from the first time. I'm an endorser of Benedetto Guitars since 2003 now and I love my Benedetto Cremona Custom, warm sound, great neck and wonderful even acoustic . Benedetto is the best guitar I played in my life! So I use it live and in studio and playing it make me feel in heaven. I'm using a Barbera Transducer for make it more acoustic and it's just great! Plus I use Buscarini Classical Guitars that I just love! I'm also endorsing DVMark Amps I've got differents models for different situation. I've got the Little Jazz Model recently and me and Bireli use it in our last tour. Plus I use La Bella Strings, Eventide Effects, Seymour Duncan/Benedetto Pick Ups.



 
What are the challenges and benefits of today's digital music scene?

Digital Music is the way we use music today so i think it's a good think in terms of diffusion but it's for sure less incoming for all of us. You Tube for example is a great way to make world know about your music and many musicians get famous because of it.





Define the sound you're still looking for.

Actually I'm pretty happy about my sound, I use mainly reverb and delay for make it special, in my case Eventide Time Factor and Space Reverb, For classical and acoustic guitar just reverb. When I want a fusion sound I'm using DV Mark Multiamp I just bring it with a midi pedalboard and I can get all the sounds I want from rock, country, funk, jazz etc.







One thing do you have learned with effort through the guitar?

Guitar is a difficul instrument and it need love to make it sound great! He is like a woman more love and time you'll give to her and more she will give back to you.





What was the best moment of your musical career?

Thanks God I had many highlight on my musical career but I think touring with Biréli Lagrène was the best of them. We play together like we know each others from a life and the audience can feel that. Plus with Joe Diorio, Vic Juris and Gene Bertoncini we ha many great moments. With Vic and Dominique Di Piazza ( a wonderful Bassist) we did 2 records together and I'm happy of them.





What dead artist would you like to have collaborated with?

I love Picasso and I think I would love to meet him and Leonardo Da Vinci he was a genius in everything!





What’s your next project about?

I've a few projects upcoming first my new record with Gene Bertoncini (many people doesn't know he was the first guitarist who record with Wayne Shorter in the album "Odissey of Iska" from the '70 with Blue Note and Wayne asked him to join Weather Report but he was too busy as a studio musician too in NY so I didn't accepted it) with Dominique  Di Piazza (John McLaughlin's bassist) and Pietro Iodice on Drums, I will tour summer and fall with Biréli Lagrène and we problably will do a record as soon as possible.


 













Saturday, June 28, 2014

Arthur Bull 13 questions



with Norm Adams and Arthur Bull at St. Matthew's United Church

Arthur Bull is a veteran guitarist and harmonica player on the Canadian improvised music scene. In the 1970’s he played with the Monday Night Orchestra, and many recognized Canadian improvisers, including the CCMC, John Oswald, Stuart Broomer, and many others. In the 1980’s he toured and recorded as guitarist with the Bill Smith Ensemble, was a member of the duo Duck Soup, with Bill Smith, and performed with the Four Horsemen, Paul Dutton, John Heward, Michael Snow, David Lee and David Prentice. Since then he has performed with many of Canada’s most recognized improvisers including Paul Plimley, Norm Adams, Paul Cram, Hank Bull, Tena Palmer and Bob Vespaziani. He has also performed in concert with Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchcai, Joe McPhee, Peter Kowald, Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey, Fred Anderson, Roger Turner, Kidd Jordan, Mike Cooper, John Russell, Pascal Marzan, Magda Mayas, Luca Venitucci and Fabrizio Spera.


 

In 1996, he met Daniel Heïkalo, who as lived nearby in rural Nova Scotia (a 2 hour drive). The duo has collaborated closely since 1999and has recorded CD Dérapages à Cordes on the label Ambiances Magnétiques in 2000, followed in 2001 by Guitar Solo, in his friend's label Heïkalo Sound Productions. In that year, the duo appeared at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. In 2002 they performed at the Guelph Jazz Festival and Guitarévolution (Montréal). 

 

He occasionally accompanied the spoken word/sound poetry quartet the Four Horsemen (Dutton, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and BP Nichol) and also Bob Cobbing. He is also a poet, with three books published Hawthorn (Broken Jaw, 1994), Key to the highway (Roseway Pub., 2000), The Lake Diary (Emmerson Street Press, 2011) , as well as two chapbooks, and a translator from the Chinese. His book, The Lake Diary is described by the press with copy that is almost a mini-poem in itself: "nature/ longing/ isolation/ calm" — perfect poems for a hot summer day. The Lake Diary evokes Arthur Bull’s love of the natural world, Chinese literature, and jazz. He has also written 25 Scores, a collection of prose poems for personal sound performance. Some of these pieces were excerpted in Word Events- Perspectives on Verbal Notations, (ed. John Lely and James Saunders, Continuum 2012), which also included scores by Ono, Cage, Bryars, Filliou and Stockhausen

 
2002 Guelph Jazz Festival - Bull-Heïkalo Concert

Arthur Bull lives on Digby Neck, in a small fishing community on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, with his artist and musician wife, Ruth Bull. and has been a long time activist for small-scale fisheries.


with Pascal Marzan and John Russell

He is currently an associate staff member of the Bay of Fundy Marine Resource Centre, and a policy advisor for the World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP), a global social movement for small-scale fisherfolk. In the past he has held various positions related to this work including, President of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association, Executive Director of the Fundy Fixed Gear Council, Chair of the Nova Scotia Coastal Communities Network , Executive Director of Saltwater Network  and Co-director of Rural Communities Impacting Policy project. He has also worked as a senior policy analyst for the Nova Scotia government. Before getting involved in the fisheries, he worked for twelve years in the community-based adult literacy field.



with Hank Bull

In the past year he has worked on a number of recording projects including a session with a trio with John Heward and Adam Linson, a song project with Éric Normand and a project on the soundscape of Halifax harbour with his brother Hank Bull.


Magda Mayas – piano, Arthur Bull – guitar, Norman Adams – cello

Which was the first and the last records you bought with your own money?  

1st: Meet the Beatles
Last: Bobby Bland Two Steps from the Blues





What do you recall about your guitar learning process?

Repeating a John Lee Hooker lick endlessly



Magda Mayas – piano, Arthur Bull – guitar, Norman Adams – cello

What gear do you use?

Acoustic gtr: Gibson L-1 Electric gtrs: Gibson ES 142 3/4, Danelectro Hornet solid body
Amp: Epiphone 12", Fender Champ
Harmonica: Hohner Chromatic  Mic: Harmonica Honker





Which work of your own are you most surprised by?

My duets with Daniel Heikalo always surprise me, because we always manage to go to new places and make new (and sometime unrepeatable) sounds




What is some valuable advice that someone has given to you in the past?

"Listen"

Also, I heard an interview wit shenai player Bismillah Khan where he said he tells his students to play in a way that someone passing by the window and hearing one note will be pierced the heart
 




What quality do you admire most in a musician?

Having a completely unique voice that responds spontaneously to other voices





What’s the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?

A good gtr is responsive to the touch (sometime these can be cheap) and bad guitar is one that is unresponsive to the touch (sometime these are expensive)





How would you define the present time in musical terms?

Most music is produced as part of a seemless homogeneous grid that is integrally fused with global capitalism, while at the same time apparently having gaps and cracks in which spontaneous music can occur




Depict the sound you're still looking for, or the sound you'd like to hear.

For some reason, I loosely associate the guitar sounds I look for with the eight trigrams in the I Ching (Sky, Earth, Wood, Thunder, Mountain, Fire, Water, Lake)





What do you think about teaching? Do you remember specially any of your teachers?

A good teacher should encourage the student to discover her or his own unique voice. I have only had one teacher, quite late in my playing life, Lloyd Garber, who had this ability, and was very helpful to me.



What do you need from music?

Magic


 Arthur Bull and Bob Vespaziani - Improv 01

Tell me one musical work which has provoked a change in your music.

Ammo By Roger Turner and Phil Minton.
It expanded my sense of what improvisation is all about.





What projects are you working on now and what does the future hold?

I have been working on a film/improvisation group in Toronto called Red Lantern. with some wonderful payers
I just played with a a guitar trio with John Russell and Pascal Marzan, which we are hoping  to continue
Another trio I just played with Italian musicians Luca Ventucci (accordion) and Fabrizio Spera (drums)
A blues duo with drummer Bob Vespaziani called The Spokes


Skeena from Solo Guitar


SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY





Live in Toronto with The Bill Smith Ensemble Onari 009 1986
 
The Toronto Collection with The Bill Smith Ensemble and Ted Joans Onari 007 1987

Strange Attractors (cassette, re-released as CD in 2011) with David Prentice NNW 001 1987

 
Dérapages á Cordes with Daniel Heïkalo Ambiences Magnétqiues AM 083 2000


Solo Guitar LMR 001 2000

 

Deuxième act with Daniel Heïkalo HSP 006 2002


Concentrés and Amalgames with Daniel Heïkalo Ambiences Magnétiques AM 151 2006
 
Peepers and Coyotes (solo guitar) LMR 002 2007


Arthur Bull and John Heward (from Peepers and Coyotes)

Six Improvisations with Daniel Heïkalo Bandcamp 2009


Arthur Bull Bob Vespaziani SMS CD 003 2010

Rafales with Daniel Heïkalo Bandcamp 2011


Sculpin Aperture with Tena Palmer and Paul Cram Upstream Recordings 2011

Tena Palmer, Arthur Bull, Paul Cram at the Open Waters festival January 2012 Halifax, NS

Live at the Central with Tena Palmer and Bob Vespaziani SMS CD 006  2012
Long Road to Far North with Bob Vespaziani SMS CD 005 2012



Jipugtug with Hank Bull Centre for Art Tapes 2013


Photos by Debra Zhou

Arthur Bull and Daniel Heikalo in concert Arthur Bull - Daniel Heikalo Duo Bandcamp 2013


RRRRRRoyal Canadian Free Form Folk Experience, Arthur Bull, Éric Normand, Bob Vespaziani Bandcamp 2013






Photo Arthur Bull